Foraging for Black Gold!

In perfect harmony with the “ultra-regional and ultra-seasonal” milieu of today’s forage-friendly dining scene, a summer truffle hunt in the hills surrounding Florence, guided by one of Italy’s best truffle hunters and his coffee-quaffing dog is a great primer in harvesting the earth’s ‘black gold’.

Giulio explaining the black truffle foraging process with Eda in the background

By Raul Dias

Perched upon the mist-shrouded hills, a little south of Florence, is a beige limestone home in the tiny village of Bagno a Ripoli. It’s one that’s filled with character and embellished by the patina of time. And that’s not just limited to the dusty bric-a-brac haphazardly strewn about the place. Or to the worn-out furnishings that bestow upon it a craggy, coarse countenance, well-offsetting it from the neighbouring homes on the Via di Terzano with their manicured gardens and staid facades.
Its inhabitants, Eda and Giulio Benuzzi, are a dynamic, truffle hunting duo blessed with unsurmountable amounts of vim and vigour, along with the appropriately heightened olfactory senses one would expect from them. And, as I was soon to discover that cold May morning, they are staunch sticklers for routines as well.
Up at a quarter to six every morning, the coffeed-up twosome set out for their morning walk, all bleary eyed and tousled salt-n-pepper hair, ready to eke out their existence in the undulating hills they both so love. With some of the ‘greatest hits’ of the Renaissance in full view on most days, they have very little to complain about. Vista-wise, that is. But today seems to be an aberration.
The fog is so thick that one can barely see the glistening concave top of Brunelleschi’s Duomo in Florence down below. “Let’s hope the truffle gods aren’t colluding with the weather gods today!” laughs Giulio, as Eda walks stealthily ahead. “She’s upset with me today because I’ve started limiting her coffee intake to a few drops in her bowl, instead of the usual half cup.”

Eda, the Lagotto Romagnolo breed truffle hunting dog

As you might have gathered by now, Eda is Giulio’s six-year-old Lagotto Romagnolo breed of truffle hunting dog, with a predilection for coffee, the occasional sliver of truffle, and on this occasion, moping! As for me, I was at the very early morning start of a four-hour truffle hunt with Giulio—often regarded as one of Florence’s…nay, Italy’s greatest truffle hunters—as part of the recently launched Airbnb Trips initiative that helps pairs travellers like myself with people like Giulio for curated, immersive experiences, for a fee of around Rs 4,500 in this instance. Expensive, yes. But then again, with a kilogram of black truffles selling for as much as Rs 573,000 at gourmet stores the world over, this doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all. Especially, not if you throw in the post-hunt, all-truffle brunch I was promised and greedily looking forward to.  
“Even dogs trained for work, like Eda, can tell you that truffles—or tartufo as we call them in Italian—are an expensive delicacy and love to eat them,” says Giulio, debunking the myth that dogs have an aversion to truffles, which was believed to have been the reason why they have now replaced pigs as truffle sniffing out animals. “It’s just that pigs are extremely unyielding when it comes to trying to retrieve the freshly dug-up truffles from their mouths. In fact, you often come across older truffle hunters with missing fingers that have been bitten off by their pigs. In the case of the Lagotto Romagnolo breed of dogs, being retrievers, they are perfect for foraging and more so the females as they have better concentration powers.” 
And just like that our hunt begins with Eda suddenly picking up a scent and making a dash towards a thickly wooded area behind the house. Rich, as Giulio points out, with lime-saturated, well-drained soil, that he then goes on to pick up and sniff. “This area is known for its black summer truffles called Scorzone whose spores prefer to anchor themselves in soil such as this, where the underlying geology is chalk or limestone. You will find truffles in the shade of oaks, hazelnut, chestnut, elm and poplar trees,” he says, as Eda starts furiously digging the loose soil under a juvenile oak tree that seems to have been recently foraged. “More often than not, newly grown truffles are found in spots where you last foraged. This is because the new truffle spores from the previous ones. But there’s no guaranteeing that. Which is why one can ever grow or cultivate truffles. They are the masters of their own whim and fancy.” 

Handfulls of black gold--truffles! 

As if on cue, Eda’s forepaws make contact with a knobbly, coal-like black truffle that Giulio is quick to dig up with his bare hands, blowing away errant specks of dirt that cling to it. Deceptively heavier in weight than it seems, the truffle’s aroma, or “noble funk” as Giulio prefers to call it permeates the air, with its earthy, musty scent triggering a hitherto absent, sudden hunger in me for it.
This brings things back to the now redundant truffle hunting pigs. Interestingly, when truffles are ripe, I’m told, they produce a chemical almost identical to a type of pheromone found in a male pig’s saliva. And that is also why right up until 1970, sows, more than pigs, were used to hunt the stuff. It’s nuggets of information like this and a whole lot more that’s part of the curriculum one needs to cram in order to obtain the Italian Truffle (hunting) License that Giulio got in 2003. This, four years after he gave up his managerial job in Milan at the famed e Api restaurant on a sudden whim to become a truffle hunter, where knowing what to forage for and when, is of utmost importance.
“These ones are similar to the French Périgord truffle—the most expensive truffle variety along with our very own Italian white specimen called Piedmont or Alba truffles. Though these black ones don’t smell as strong as the Périgord truffle, as we age them for a few days, the aroma does get intensified,” Giulio says, his affection for the elusive fungi irresistibly infectious, as he fishes out a tissue paper that will ensconce our debut truffle find. But there will be many more to come in the following months, as summer truffles start to ripen in May and continue fruiting right up to beginning of September. These then give way to the autumn and winter varieties like Nero Pregiato and Invernale respectively, that can be foraged till the end of January.
Back home at Casa Benuzzi, this time with a neat little cache of five, decent-sized tartufi nestled in the front pocket of Giulio’s fishing vest, both man and beast settle down for some well-earned mangiare time! Sadly, our quintet of ‘black gold’ will have to wait till they mature before eating I’m told, as Giulio deftly slices some cheese from a block.
But, in keeping with the truffle-centric leitmotif of the morning, this is no ordinary cheese that I’m ravenously chowing down upon, a flute of effervescent prosecco at hand. With its Venetian underpinning firmly in place, the pale yellow Sottocenere is a semi-soft cow’s milk cheese to which slices of truffles are added when setting. When close to maturity, the cheese is rubbed with various herbs and spices and then covered with a light layer of ash which is what gives it its rather mellifluous name Sottocenere—which in Italian means “under ash.”

The simple 'cucina rustica' meal enhanced by freshly shaved truffles back at Giulio's home

Suitably al dente spaghetti carbonara made with an unctuous emulsion of heavy cream, egg yolks, pancetta lardons and olive oil (truffle-infused, of course) is what constitutes our pasta course. Quickly anointed with a halo of black truffle shavings that cascade on to the plate, the humble dish made in the ‘cucina rustica’ home-style of Italian cooking is elevated to the gastronomic equivalent of high heaven. Each bite releasing a surge of umami je ne sais quoi.
And it’s that very same, indescribable allure of the truffle that has made it so very prized and sought after for centuries. Truly worth risking bitten off appendages…and yes, brutal, early morning wake up calls for!

Pics Rebecca Marshall

One Truffle at a Time!

·         While the elusive white truffles are mainly found in Northern and Central Italy, especially Piedmont, Tuscany and Marches, one can also find white truffles in Croatia.

·         There are also two types of Asian truffles known as the Chinese Black Truffle and the Mid-Eastern Terfez. The Chinese Black Truffle s also known as the Himalayan truffle and is found in Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and the Szechwan and Yunnan provinces in China. On the other hand, the Terfez Truffle is also known as ‘black kame’ and it is found in the semi-arid regions of North Africa and Middle East, from Morocco to Iraq.

·         Though truffles are best eaten freshly shaved over pasta, risotto or even plain old scrambled eggs, there have been various iterations of the truffle-infused dessert such as a truffle panna cotta and a truffle sundae.

·         A fresh truffle can last for up to two weeks once wrapped in absorbent paper napkins. However, truffles preserved in olive oil can last up to three months.

·         Most bottled varieties of ‘truffle’ oil are merely oils to which a truffle identical flavouring agent such as 2,4-dithiapentane has been added.

·         While people have been eating truffles for almost 4,000 years, it’s value only increased after World War II as truffle groves planted in the 19th century stopped being productive due to soil saturation.

·         On an average, most truffles weigh between 100 to 150 grams a piece, but according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest truffle in the world is a 1.31 kilograms white truffle found by Giancarlo Zigante of Pototoska in 1999 near Buje in Croatia.

·         Probably India’s most expensive truffle-infused dish is the Tagliatelle with Fresh Truffles that’s available at No Vacancy restaurant and bar in Mumbai for Rs 4,450 plus taxes per serving.

(A shorter, differently edited version of this article appeared in the 19th August 2017 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/5RXPNbJuL1IJd2v1x9ARsI/Truffle-hunt-Foraging-for-black-gold.html)